Berrien Springs. Milwaukee. Pittsburgh. Grand Rapids. Back to Pittsburgh. Now back to Milwaukee

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Florida (in words, not pictures)

We're having camera issues and I can't even blame it on the kids. A few days before Mali's birthday, I dropped our camera on the stairs. Can I possibly attribute that pregnancy lack-of-balance? For whatever reason, it's not working. So I have the best of intentions of downloading our recent vacation pictures from my parent's camera, but all of the normal parenting life just keeps getting in the way.

However, we had a fantastic Florida vacation visiting Grandma Dee and Papa (great-grandparents to our girls). We made a road trip of it while the rest of the Koch-Shunkwiler gang flew down and met us there. Other than a tire blow-out and awful holiday traffic, we all managed the drive pretty well. It was well worth it to spend such precious time with our extended family. We stayed in my grandparents park, swam every day, ate yummy food, took the girls fishing, and even managed a day at Princess Heaven, aka Disney World. Plenty of pictures of that to come. Until that time, here are our favorite quotes from each of our girls during the trip....

1) We hit our final traffic jam about 20 minutes away from our grandparents' place. So frustrating. So we ventured into "Celebration" for a quick distraction. At one intersection, another driver was having a difficult time determining right-of-way. After motioning her on several times, Jonathan mumbled something under his breath. Of course, the girls caught it right away and asked him to elaborate. He said "oh, I was just saying hi to my new best friend." Not catching his sarcasm, Amalia asked him what the new friends' name was. He responded, "Oh, honey, I don't know". She immediately told him "best friends know each other's names!"

2) Jonathan allowed the girls to help him steer the golf cart driving back and forth to the pool. Brinnly went first which scared Amalia. "Brinn's never had driving lessons!" she maintained. "Yes, I have!" Brinn retorted, "I drove with Hata and Hoshish for twenty hours on the way here and took driving lessons with them!". Never discount the talent and qualifications of those imaginary friends.

3) And finally, don't look to our family for any future Tiger Woods. Jonathan and I took the girls mini golfing one night and while Mali and I were getting a drink of water, I heard Carrigan screaming "no, no, no!" I looked back and Brinn and Jonathan were far away from her. Supposedly she had gotten frustrated with her luck at the game, threw down her club and laid down kicking and screaming. Maybe she'll be a boxer instead.